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Johannesburg - South Africa's two biggest mining unions said on Tuesday they would submit their wage demands to the coal and gold sectors in the coming weeks, setting the stage for a showdown.
The once-dominant National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) told Reuters it would make its demands by the end of March, while its bitter rival the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) said it would lodge its demands by April.
The two-year wage agreements in the two sectors expire in June 2015, and companies urged the unions to make reasonable wage demands, with one saying it would not be "intimidated" by the groups.
The South African mining industry is still reeling from a record five-month strike in the platinum sector in 2014 led by Amcu that is still affecting the businesses of major producers.
The NUM represents 57% of the workforce in the gold sector, while Amcu represents 25%, according to data from an industry website called Wage Negotiations For the Gold Industry 2015.
Sibanye Gold's [JSE:SGL] chief executive Neal Froneman told Reuters any wage settlement had to be sustainable. The gold industry was in "a sunset phase" and needed to be "nurtured and not raped", he said.
"I remain optimistic about negotiations but I have to tell you that we won't be bullied or intimidated," Froneman said.
The spokesperson for Africa's second-biggest coal producer Exxaro Hilton Atkinson said Amcu did not have bargaining rights in the company. NUM however has 74% of the company's workers under its banner.
The NUM's national bargaining conference is due to be held on Wednesday and Thursday to formulate a rough draft of the demands, and the union will then seek members' approval on a final version.
While fighting for workers rights, the unions are engaged in their own battle. The NUM has been hit by incursions by Amcu, which has poached tens of thousands of NUM members on the platinum belt in a bitter turf war that flared in 2012 and has led to the deaths of dozens of miners.
READ: NUM wants justice for Marikana bloodshed
The bloody rivalry has been spreading gradually to the gold sector, forcing Sibanye to temporarily close one of its mines in February because of union fighting.
